Former teacher, self-training Montessorian, in my 8th year of homeschooling; now homeschooling my 2 kids and 1 from another family (he's a 16yo who would like to be referred to as "Bob"), AND looking after my 2 nieces, 5yo and 2yo.

About Me

Friday, February 23, 2007

It's Friday! What a week!!!!

What an odd week.

First Monday was a holiday.

Then the two oldest only came for Tues. We only got part of my plans done--did a bit of research on Mexico (including forecast and some useful Spanish phrases). Part of that due to an unplanned occurrence--my nephew being with us that day--part due to me being silly thinking after a long weekend and the day before leaving on a trip that the two oldest would have any desire to do work! (The plans were still worth it, though, because I was the one to initiate finding out more about where they're going to be and they quite enjoyed it--even found a beachcam to watch lol.) We got our Scholastic in, but ds was very sad because they ran out of what he'd ordered. :( But we still got his books and read them that night. (Scooby-Doo rebus books--can't get better than that for a 6yo boy starting to read lol!)

Wednesday was strange not having the two oldest here and the kids weren't interested in doing much (we also decided to go to Scholars Choice, which led to my two purchasing toys, which meant they weren't interested in doing anything after that). I also got my Ray's Arithmetic books (woo hoo!). Dd complained a little bit about her back bothering her. They had played outside for a couple of hours in the afternoon--I figure she must have overworked her back muscles or pulled something wrong with the crazy stuff they were doing in the snow.

Thursday morning, I did some of the Ray's orally with the kids (they loved it!) and they played with their new toys. We also went to a local French bookstore. Purchased a novel to read with dd (she chose it--we both thought it was a book about dragons, but once home, realized that the title had the word Daragon, not Dragon; still looks good though--tied with Greek mythology), a workbook for them each, and instead of a book, ds picked an alphabet poster--with a picture for each letter of the alphabet. I asked him if he was absolutely sure, and he was. I put it up when we got home and he looked at it later on. Poor kid was tired and sensitive. He saw a picture with a bunch of ants (fourmis) but could not understand why there was a 'z' in the word below the picture. Dd told him it was for 'quinze' (15), because there were 15 ants. He burst into tears. "I thought it was ants." Me, I thought it was great because it showed that he knew a z didn't have any place in the word 'fourmi'!!

Just before supper, dd was working in her workbook and as she sat up totally straight to leave the table, complained that her back REALLY hurt. Started crying. Nearest I could figure it was a spasm due to the muscle that had been bothering her the day before. Hadn't caused her any problem at all Thurs. except for then--and afterwards. I gave her ibuprofen to help relax the muscle and deal with the pain and had her lay on her back. After supper, I let them watch tv (even though I'd already let them watch a movie that day) and made sure she laid down. She felt much better by the time she went to bed. Unfortunately, the ibuprofen wore off in the middle of the night and she woke up at 2am, just after her dear brother woke up to go to the bathroom, crying. I got her a gel ice pack we have and another ibuprofen and laid with her until she fell asleep, which took quite a while. The muscles around her diaphragm on her chest were spasming--I'm pretty sure in reaction to her tensing up with the back muscle pain which was located directly opposite on her back. Poor kid. :( I got back to bed around 3:30. Fell asleep. Slept hard until 5 when I was awake like a lightning bolt: I HAD to go to the bathroom. Did that, but because it was 5 and I was so tired, I decided to go lay down on the couch downstairs. (What does THAT have to do with anything, you're probably asking? lol) Well, dh's alarm goes off at 6. If I go lay down on the sofa downstairs, I won't be bothered by anything until at least close to 7. More time to sleep. Slept until 6:30. Yay! That counts as major sleeping in for me. lol.

Today we went to a nearby rec centre. Dd wasn't too keen on going, but I knew being in the water would help her feel better. I pulled out our 'noodles' and she got a little more excited to go. Before that, I felt around her back a bit. Was able to identify by touch where her problem is: muscle on the left side is swollen and has even pulled a vertebra a little bit out of whack. I hope it'll calm down. If not, I guess I'll be making my first visit to a chiropractor next week. I massaged gently around it and she said it felt really good. We iced it again, she took an ibuprofen about an hour before leaving and she had a great time in the pool. She was careful about what she did in the park: she wants to make sure she can go to her skating lesson tomorrow! She's complaining it's bothering her a bit now, but not enough to require an ibuprofen. Good. We'll do another ice tonight and give her an ibuprofen just before she goes to bed, then start heat in the morning. If she can go without ibuprofen in the morning, that'd be great, but if it's bothering her at all, I'll give her one an hour before she goes skating. I'm so glad she did not have to go to school through all of this!

As for me, my body's still fighting off the colds going around, with one of those barely congested things (yet still having to blow my nose a lot; very strange), but tired and prone to headaches. Ah well, I guess this is better than having bronchitis for a week or so. My mom and the 12yo both ended up with bronchitis and both have been sick for weeks (and now they're both in Mexico--my mom left this morning; serves them right! ;) ). I guess being barely sick is better than that. Although if it meant getting to go to Mexico...